The Most Divisive Aspect Of ‘House Of Cards’ Season Four Is The Politics Of Social Media

Watching a political drama with a group of people who are likely to vote differently from one another in an election can be an interesting, miniature social experiment. Fictional themes tend to bleed through the screen — especially those lifted from the headlines — and conversations about imaginary, conniving politicians give way to discussions about living, breathing, conniving politicians. Needless to admit, I spent the weekend bingeing the fourth season of Netflix’s House of Cards with my Baby Boomer parents. What’s that? Yes, I live a very exciting life, thankyouverymuch. Now where were we? Oh, right: political differences based on varying generational viewpoints.

Without getting too far ahead of myself, let me begin by saying: Season Four of House of Cards is a must-watch. Whatever lull the Netflix Original series fell into last year is a thing of the past considering this new batch of episodes is too good, too gritty, and too delightfully soapy to pass up. These are all things my parents and I could wholeheartedly agree upon. The aspects of the new season that divided us, however, weren’t notoriously polarizing topics like gun control, women’s rights, or invading terrorist-controlled sects of the Middle East (all of which are analyzed at different points throughout), but something more trivial: social media.

Not to spoil much of anything at all, but there’s a moment when Kevin Spacey‘s Frank Underwood challenges his much younger opponent, GOP presidential candidate Will Conway (Joel Kinnaman), to somewhat of a morality duel. That’s right: the man who murdered two people in cold blood spouts lessons about principles to his youthful constituent. But after you get done rolling your eyes, Underwood’s argument about fighting a fight with “dignity” shifts from one of a borderline Aaron Sorkin sermon circa The Newsroom to a genuinely thought-provoking conversation:

For context, prior to this discussion, Conway won over a slew of potential voters with a home video webcast showing off his “humble” means (“We don’t live in the Governor’s Mansion. We live in a house just like yours.”) and Pinterest-perfect family; equipped with a wife who could make a living as a model and two, Christmas card-ready children, not unlike those you’d see in Baby Gap commercials. And by way of focusing on his Everyman likability, Conway also achieves burying a potentially career-ending story via iPhone broadcast. You see, Conway has been paying fictional search engine, Pollyhop, an appallingly large sum of money for control of their algorithms to skew searched information about the 2016 election in his favor. Of course, the Underwoods get wind of this and try to expose the tech-savvy governor, but not without backlash. Cue: impeccably staged home video with a seemingly harmless, “You get to know us, we get to know you” message.

I remember saying aloud, “Shit, that’s smart,” after Conway ended his webcast, sending the Underwoods scrambling to come up with their next big move to recapture the campaign discourse. My mother, however, who is more social media-savvy than I like to give her credit, responds, “I don’t like that. People see right through things like that.” But what about the Everyman aspect? That wins people over, right? “Nah, it looks like he’s trying too hard. And he’s exposing his family.”

I was surprised. Suddenly, this wasn’t an argument between young and old or social media-literate or, well, not so much: it was about reputation. Season Four of House of Cards plays with this notion quite a bit: both symbolically — the Conways framed through the lens of their iPhones and webcams — and deliberately, with language like, “The Conways are everything wants to be. [The Underwoods] are everything wants to become.” This hammers home the idea that, while fresh and flashy may certainly be appealing, it’s reputation — a concrete set of principles — that wins folks over. And while The Underwoods are notoriously evil and manipulative — even stooping so low to use the ones they love to get ahead — they rarely diverge from their ethos, as screwed up as it may be.

Season Four of House of Cards has plenty to say: about social issues that ail us, about systemic political corruption, and about abusing absolute power. But it carries with it a larger message about the state of our own circus of an election: social media can cloud our judgment. Whether you want to take it with a grain of salt is up to you — it is a TV show, after all — but one message is as crystal clear as your mega pixel camera: it’s time to put the phone down and see candidates for their genuine good or, in the case of these fictitious candidates, for their underlying diabolical behavior.

Photos: Netflix